WHY LOVE IS LIKE A WILD HORSE

It's for every one of us who has ever felt panicked in our relationship.Who has ever felt the pangs of anxiety and fear of losing him.Who has grabbed on tightly, wanted to keep it with us, wanted more, or felt out of control of our love...

Here is that truth:

Love is like a wild horse --- no matter how much we might want to tame it, there's a really, really important reason why we shouldn't.

And when we do let it stay wild --- when we embrace and even love its wildness --- it creates the dynamic and the energy that invites and inspires our guy to keep coming back to us, and to feel safe enough to come even closer.

{continue reading below}

Imagine you're living on a beautiful, sprawling, sun-drenched ranch. A dappled shade peppers the grass as the sun peeks through the lush, swaying trees. You feel carefree and relaxed as you inhale the rich freshness of the breeze.

And there's a stunning wild horse you encountered a while ago, as you both had stopped to drink from a nearby stream. You bonded, you connected. And it keeps returning, regularly, to your pastures and you ride together through the fields, you rest together under shady trees or on the banks of the water, you roam together through nearby meadows.

It's the stuff dreams are made of; fairytales.

The beginnings of relationships often feel this way. They are beautiful, intoxicating things.

The dance is thrilling, the newness is exhilarating, even the uncertainty is an elixir. Every brush of his hand, every syllable of a text, every glance is exciting and inspiring and the stuff of romance novels.

And then, when the milky haze of early love, with its continual surprise and delight, starts to clear into the sharp relief of expectation, assumptions, meaning and control --- the dance slows, the newness fades, and the once-sweet elixir takes on the bitter taste of urgency, a need for assurance, and resentment.

There are boundary disputes, territory negotiations, a watchful eye on the scales of "fairness," and meaning attributed to his every move (or lack thereof).

He seems a little distant; he's not taking you on dates as often as you'd want him to; you text him more than he texts you; comparing the early days to the recent ones makes you question his feelings for you; you can't remember the last time he invited you to come out with his friends; you wonder what happened to his rapt, eager attention or his looking at you in "that way"... The tallying begins, and the romance starts fading out to a disappointed end.

It's all perfectly normal -- navigating that transition from stranger-hood to coupledom (as well as coupledom to commitment, or simply maintaining a lasting and vital relationship) can be tricky and it can take some finesse to nurture that fairytale, and to avoid those resentment and score-keeping pitfalls.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You can navigate that terrain smoothly, and keep the relationship on a joyful path.

As a Love Coach, there are a lot of things I can tell you about how to do this, but there is a really great tip that I heard during my coach training that is a powerful place to start --- and that was:

"Release him every day." *

That doesn't mean you break up every single day. It doesn't mean you never commit. And it doesn't mean settling for the scraps that some player-guy deigns to drop at your doorstep when he wants to hold onto his bachelorhood. No way. Not even close.

Let's go back to our wild horse visualization...

And after you ride and rest and roam through idyllic meadows, the stunning wild horse always heads back to its hills --- you don't know where it goes or what it's doing out there, but it always returns to you. Sometimes it even returns sooner than you expect it.

Your heart always leaps when you see him approaching, your soul smiles, and you even find yourself relishing the daydreams and the time to simply feel languorous in your own skin when he's away.

And then one day you decide to close the gate, keeping the horse from getting out; keeping it in your pasture, penned in, so that you can always have the joyful experience of riding and resting and roaming together; so that every moment, the horse is there with you. It's yours. You never have to be without it or wonder where it is when it's off in the hills.

But something's changed...

The dynamic between you has changed.

The quality of the time you spend together deteriorates when it feels constrained, when it feels it has lost its freedom.

He suddenly feels obligated, even trapped -- where he used to feel passionate and enticed.

And you suddenly feel in control, and yet anxious -- where you used to feel alive and free.

And that idyllic scene -- the one that felt so beautiful and intoxicating, so thrilling and inspiring -- doesn't stand a chance around those feelings.

You can't harness love --- it is inherently and forever wild.

Any attempt to tame it, bind it, or confine it serves only to suffocate it.

But it is there for you.

Love wants to thrill you. It wants to be experienced and explored and shared.

It even wants to devote itself to you and never leave you.

In this way, when you choose to release him every day, you're simply allowing the inherent nature of love to flow.

You're allowing the attraction that drew you together to continue to flourish.

You're releasing him every day to honor the whole of his being; the man who he is and who he's always been.

You're releasing him every day to choose, every day, to return to you.

To grow trust, to grow passion --- for you and for his own life, to grow the bond between you.

You're also releasing YOURSELF every day.

Allowing yourself to be wild. To be renewed. To flow with the natural tides of your life and energy.

You're allowing YOU to return to you (to fully experience that love affair, as well).

This isn't to say that you have to simply 'deal.'

That your guy gets to do whatever he wants and that you have to simply take whatever is given to you no matter how it feels.

You don't, and there are very, very powerful ways to have your needs met while still honoring the wildness within each of you.

But there's a powerful beauty behind this metaphor that is very, very true of relationships:

When we can feel just as good when he's roaming the hills as when we're riding, resting and roaming together, it creates the dynamic and the energy that invites and inspires him to return more frequently, for longer periods, AND to feel safe enough to come even closer.

And, in this way, you both get to have multiple love affairs: With him. With your life. With you.

*I believe this quote was attributed to Marianne Williamson, and, while I don't know this for sure, I want to be sure to give credit for the idea.

Originally posted on Some Talk of You and Me site, July 8, 2015. #FIERCEHEARTTALK